CocoGarcia

Happy New Year from Kauai!

View from my Beach Chair

Merry Christmas!

Treasure Found!

What are the odds? At a conference with thousands of people suddenly I notice one of my two left earrings is missing. Yes, one of five I always wear. Just when I reach to fondle it, it isn't there. Not just any earring. One of a set of five given me by my siblings on occasion of my 50th. Madly I call lost and found before proceeding to retrace my steps for the day through four conference session rooms large and small and various detours in and out. At the next to last stop when I ask for access to have a look for my lost treasure, a woman bellows "she found it, she has it!" And suddenly there it was nestled in her hand, and then back in mine. What are the odds?!

Hooray for Holidays!

I love the holidays.  I just can't help myself. The anticipation of festivities, joy, family and community celebration, food, music, singing, services, spiritual rituals and even all the gifting.  Tamales and pasteles, christmas trees and hannukah dradles, grass under my bed for gifts from the three kings, new year's eve, mistletoe, ornaments, gift wrapping, midnight mass, lighting candles, advent, arroz con leche, majarete.  I love the holidays for all the good we engender, for the gentler spirit we release.  I love the holidays for its pure joy.  Happy holidays!  May yours be joyous.  I'm working on extending the Puerto Rican tradition of holidays that go from November through February to the entire year.

At the Beach with my Sister

Jackie Tapes Not to be Missed!

Do not miss the recently released recordings of Jacqueline Kennedy's 1964 conversations with Arthur Schlesinger Jr.  What a wonderful way to appreciate this remarkable woman's role in modern history and her take on the world from her perch in the White House.  Jacqueline Kennedy's notable intelligence, wit and thoughtfulness emanate from this publication.  It also gives such a strong sense of the constraints on women in those times, something of which we would all do well to remind ourselves.  Kudos to Caroline Kennedy and her family for having the courage to release these until now vaulted valuables.  What a thought provoking backdrop for pondering the mess we're in today.  Where has our civic pride gone?  Our sense of social justice?  Our humanity?  Difficult times ask much of us.  We need to step up.  People before us worked to hard for us to sit back.  We need to step up.

Unplug, Recharge, Sleep

Yes, unplug, recharge, sleep. These recent words of Arianna Huffington in this month's Vogue caught my attention, and for the obvious reason. I need all of the above.  I too have much ahead for which I wish to be at my best. And you?  Time for a homemade bowl of soup anyone?

Happy Halloween!

This very self possessed vampire assured me her costume was the best I'd see and a friendly fireman who asked to pick a geranium after scoring candy have graced my door tonight, reminding me of the pure authenticity of the very young.

The Language of Flowers

How is it possible to wax poetic enough about this amazing novel?  Vanessa Diffenbaugh tells the story of Victoria, a young woman abandoned at birth who finds her way to humanity via the beauty of flowers.  This story captures in a singularly believable way the heartbreak of a child disconnected from all caring love and support.  It captures the onlookers disbelief, our resistance to taking in let alone understanding such deprivation in another, what it takes for us to even begin to fathom the experience of such a child and counteract.  It captures pure heartbreak and the triumph of the human spirit.